A Scenario of Destitute Widows in Mayiladuthurai District, Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Widow is a person who lost her husband permanently with all evidences (death) after the marriage has taken place. Destitute means an individual who doesn’t have any social, economic, psychological and physical support legally from any bodies. But the defined ‘a person who hasn’t had any support from is defined as bread winner other than herself after the death of her husband’. Her legalized loss of one’s spouse by all the evidences is called as widowhood. This has been used invariably for any sexes. The treatments towards them destitute widows are reluctant and negligence in all spares of life i.e auspicious occasions. They are much serious about feeling of self, stigma, rights, future of their children etc., which are not considered empathetically even as human being. This kind of emergence challenged them to face the insecurity in psychologically, socially, economically and politically with the absence of support at their everyday life. At this context, the researcher conducted a qualitative study among 100 widows in the study area i.e Sirkazhi taluk of Mayiladuthurai district by using semi-structured interview schedule to analyse their psychological perception towards themselves and other human being at their life span who were in social system as relatives or neighbours and civil society. In India there were more than 42.4 million widows among which constitutes 17.3% of world’s widows’ population i.e 245 million by 2010. In India nearly 20% were made as eligible pensioners, less than 11% only able to avail the government benefits for the destitute widows; but the reality is questionable. On that context and knowing of the real scenario of prevailing situation among the destitute widows and draw an alternative livelihood mechanism, this research was conduct and the results have been placed hereunder in the full paper.